prevent access via .htaccess *TO* a given hostname

prevent access via .htaccess *TO* a given hostname - .htaccess files are extremely useful in many cases for users who either do not have root permissions or for users who simply aren't comfortable in making changes in their web server's configuration file. Trying to debug .htaccess not working isn't always the easiest thing to do, however, hopefully by checking the discuss below mentioned about htaccess, , , , .htaccess common problems as well as the troubleshooting tips, you'll have a better grasp on what you may have to modify to get your .htaccess file running smoothly.Problem :

I have a website which is accessible via several hostnames.

I would like to put something in an .htaccess file that would simply block any request requesting a particular hostname.

For example, say example1.com and hello.somehost.com both point to the same website. I would like to put something in the .htaccess file that will allow users to view the website if they visit example1.com, but will not allow users to view it if they visit hello.somehost.com.

You'd think this would be easy to Google but if there are any results out there, they're drowned out by people who want to block access if the user is coming from a particular hostname...

Solution :

Apparently newer versions of apache (2.4) support conditional statements in .htaccess files, although i havent found a reference... just lots of results on other stack exchange sites.

You might also be able to accomplish what you want to do using rewrite rules.

Otherwise, the most obvious place to do this is in your virtual host config.

If you have a global php include file, you could do it there as a last resort.

You can implement it using mod_rewrite. Have mod_rewrite check for the HTTP_HOST and show a 403 Forbidden error:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %HTTP_HOST ^hello.somehost.com$
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Additionally, if you would like to do some further testing, give the htaccess tester tool a try. It allows you to specify a certain URL as well as the rules you would like to include and then shows which rules were tested, which ones met the criteria, and which ones were executed.